Friday, 22 November 2013

CAPISTRANO: Pumpkin Heads

CAPISTRANO: Pumpkin Heads: Post Halloween, symbols of the event can be found throughout towns and cities, discarded and forlorn, as they await garbage pickup. Lik...

Pumpkin Heads


Post Halloween, symbols of the event can be found throughout towns and cities, discarded and forlorn, as they await garbage pickup.
Like the guillotined heads that rolled during the French Revolution, they exhibit the gruesome, final facial expressions of an all too short life. A truncated existence determined by the whims of others. Others who traded them as commodities in the marketplace.
Metaphors perhaps, for the human condition.
Pumpkins are thin skinned. Their “meat” is prized as a dessert filling. They are hollow inside but those cavities contain seeds. Seeds that guarantee their future success in the natural order of the world.Seeds as sine qua non for sustainability.
Enter Mr. Michael Campbell. Some would describe him as a pumpkin.
He manages to escape the social guillotine of marriage breakup. He also avoids the blade that descends toward his neck released by his corporate superiors.
He seeks the seeds that lie within as he builds an empire that trades in a commodity that is of a tender age as well. The desserts that some, those of means, gorge on. The sweetness, the seductiveness of youth cloaked under the cover of night.
Come to the story of Michael’s quest in the novel, CAPISTRANO.
Follow his exploits, witness his personal fears, his fearlessness in the face of adversity, his fulminations against the status quo. Emphasize with, and perhaps even demonize the man and as he struggles mightily to farm his personal pumpkin patch.

Capistrano is available at: